On 5/25/11 12:32 PM, "Dan Mathews" <dmath...@duncansolutions.com> wrote:

>We are beginning this investigation as well.  Of particular interest is
>the ability to wipe corporate email from any device with/without
>affecting personal settings.  I know there is talk of BES supporting
>other devices in the future, but we are looking at stepping away from
>the expense of BES in general for many of our users.
>
>We have always supported the notion that one platform is easier to
>support, but if we move away from that, it would be to a standpoint of
>providing access to email, calendar, contacts, but not much more than
>that.
>
>I am interested to see where this conversation will go...


I tested MaaS360 from Fiberlink, and Air Watch.  I liked the SaaS
solutions rather than hosting one or two additional servers, building and
maintaining updates.  There is a connector between the vendor's server.
It is small.  I put it on the server hosting our BES.

They were very comparable.  The interface was a bit different, but the
capabilities about the same.

For MaaS360, the pricing per user was more expensive, but support is free.
 The support is out of Blue Bell, PA -- a bicycle ride from my home -- and
very good.

Air Watch was cheaper per user, but any premium support was extra.  I did
not have occasion during the test to try the support.

Both solutions require you to obtain an enterprise developer's license
from Apple at the cost of $299/year in order to get Apple's permission to
access their APIs for management.

We went with MaaS360, mostly based on support. I have been using it for
about 6 weeks and like it a lot.  As a user, I prefer Android, but as an
administrator, there is a lot more control with iOS.   Activations are
almost as easy as BES OTA activations.  Policies are reasonably granular.
One of the benefits or iOS for administrators is the users' and carriers'
inability to customize them significantly.  With important apps
standardized management becomes easier. Android requires an app to be
installed free from the Market.  You can push email configurations with
the Touchdown exchange client.  It's a paid app, but both vendor plan to
offer discounted or free branded versions of touchdown.

Both allow password locking, selective and full wipes.  Both offer phone
location services via the GPS radio.  Both have a quarantine feature to
prevent users from doing their own unmanaged configurations.  You can also
block a device.

Both leave plenty of room for wish lists.

No carrier data plan surcharges like the BB Enterprise Data Plan.




-- 


Art Alexion
Systems Engineer -- Infrastructure Engineering Group
Resources for Human Development




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